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It is also my understanding that Google's position was that they were within "fair use" limitations of the copyright law. Scanning all those books and placing "portions" on the web did not hurt the rights holders. In fact, it helped them by letting the public know that material in which they might be interested existed. Did Google go too far by displaying too much of the content? I think that they did, but the only way to know that for sure is to have a judge rule on the case.
Personally, I like the compromise Google and the rightsholders agreed up. If the book is still in print then they use an "opt in" stategy. If the book is out of print then they use an "opt out" strategy.
Even better would be to revise the copyright law. One suggestion I liked (I think I saw it on this site somewhere) was to have an initial short copyright, ten years or so, and just like now the copyright doesn't cost the rights-holder anything. At the end of the ten years the rights-holder would have to pay a fee to extend the copyright another 10 years. The fee would start out low and then get larger each time the copyright was extended (let's say $100 for first extension to $1 million for tenth extension). This would allow authors and publishers to profit from their creativity and investments. It would also allow huge corporations to protect their investments. Lastly, it would protect the publics right to their intellectual heritage.
Without a reasonable copyright law I'm inclined to support the Robin Hoods and the poachers hunting in the King's forests.
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